


The Right Incentive

by estherlyon



Series: Prompts in a Galaxy far far away [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Jyn and Han are buddies, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, That time between ANH and ESB, The Imperials verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 04:16:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13333314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estherlyon/pseuds/estherlyon
Summary: Jyn has a hunch on how to convince Han Solo to stay with the Rebellion.





	The Right Incentive

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response to an anonymous prompt I got on tumblr. It's sort of a deleted scene off of my multichapter fic, [The Imperials](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11522058/chapters/25861377), a The Americans AU I finished last month. You don't need to have read it to get it, but please go read it, if because it's a nice thing to do for a total stranger. :)

Jyn recognized something in Han Solo, the smuggler turned reluctant rebel, the instant they met after the destruction of the Death Star. Something in his stance of “each to his own” in regards to survival in a hostile galaxy hit a little too close to home, especially with regards to her feelings after Saw had decided he was done with her and had placed her in the Alliance’s hands. However, it was mostly his utter lack of patience with Alliance protocol and bureaucracy what she identified with the most. In the days following their victory, when they were overcome with evacuation plans, whenever she saw Solo grumbling his way through the halls of the Massassi temple, something in her would catch Cassian’s attention. He would look at her sternly, she would shoot him a look as if to say he knew she was right, and thankfully this silent exchange would be the only acknowledgement of their differences with regards to the Rebellion’s procedures. Yes, Cassian had disobeyed orders for her, had gone rogue with her in what left him undergoing hours of physical therapy in order to basically learn to walk again, but he was still Cassian Andor, the man out of whose hands she had to pry datapads and flimsies every night whenever she would walk into his quarters and find him limp in sleep, in a position that did nothing to help his new prosthetic vertebrae.

“’not done readin’ tha’,” he mumbled on the first night that happened, his accent thick and his voice raspy.

“I can see that,” she whispered fondly, “seems very riveting material, since you’re practically unconscious.”

“No I’m no’.”

Despite his protesting, Cassian let her manhandle him into an appropriate position on the bunk, something that got her narrowing her eyes in suspicion at him. She could read him like a book, but the last hours had been so hectic and emotionally fraught, she was exhausted herself. Her suspicion faded the instant she heard his breath catch with wakeful surprise when she slipped into bed alongside him, draping a bare leg over him.

“Hello,” he said thickly.

“Hi,” she laughed softly, “comfortable?”

He only hummed in response, running a hand over her leg and tucking her tighter against him.

“I’ll need to wake earlier to finish what I was doing.”

“What was that?”

“Going over protocol for a medal ceremony.”

She tried not to jostle him too much when she shot upright to look at his face.

“We’re in the middle of an evacuation and they want to give out medals?” something then occurred to her that terrified her, “are they for _us_?”

“No. Draven talked the princess out of that. It seemed in poor form to outwardly reward disobedience,” Jyn snorted in response to that, but he continued, “he agreed, though, that it would be good for morale to give out medals to Skywalker and Solo.”

“Oh, all right,” she replied, relief sending her into drowsiness.

“You’re not going to mock high command for wasting time over nonsense?” he teased through a yawn.

“I’m all for morale,” she mumbled, skimming a bite against his neck, “plus, I really want to see how Solo’s going to react to that. I think he has a thing for Leia.”

She could tell Cassian was rolling his eyes in the dark.

She liked talking to Solo, though, and they established a repartee that Cassian begrudgingly respected, if only because he caught on to what Jyn had in mind. Solo seemed bemused by her, thought she probably had a story similar to his own, when she – contrary to a lot of recruits on base – seemed to know the Galaxy as much as he did. And in the days through the evac prep, before the medal ceremony, he caught on to her lack of patience.

To be fair, she was cranky because Cassian was hurting and tired, but refusing to take on less responsibilities, and she had the feeling that they were going to be sent on separate missions as soon as medical cleared them. However, she let Solo think what he wanted because he was clearly an asset and she knew a recruiting opportunity when she saw one.

When she mentioned her upbringing as a Partisan, Solo was thrown for a loop, though.

They were taking a break on packing supplies, sitting on a couple of closed crates.

“Saw Gerrera?” he asked, a bit dumbfounded, “he was even more insane than these people here, you know, will all due respect and all.”

“Yes, but didn’t come up with half the nonsense,” she said, blowing over a cup of really horrible caf, that she supposed had to be drunk at boiling point in order to disguise the taste.

“You mean diplomacy,” he laughed, “true.”

“Yes, you know, compromise with politicians,” she replied, eyeing him carefully.

He narrowed his eyes. He had seen her talking with Leia, “huh.”

“In the last few days, I’ve developed a few grudges that remind me of Saw, I admit.”

“Such as?” he seemed genuinely intrigued.

“The Council didn’t approve our mission to Scarif,” she revealed carefully, “we had all the intel, but they didn’t let themselves believe us, because they didn’t want to start a war.”

She took a sip of the horrible, horrible drink in her hand. He was looking at her clearly surprised.

“You went rogue?”

“Only a couple of people in that room supported us,” she said, feeling a tug in her chest, “one of them was Leia’s father, Senator Bail Organa. Leia was captured because he sent her first to Tatooine. She was supposed to find Obi-Wan Kenobi. She then got orders to divert to Scarif and receive the plans.”

At that moment, Cassian and Leia chose to walk by them. Cassian was limping along on a crutch with a datapad in the other hand; Leia was – remarkably – wearing fatigues, better to do the sort of physical work everyone on base was pitching in with. They were deep in discussion, both with identical frowns on their faces as they looked down into the datapad. Jyn started cataloguing the muscles on his back he was probably pulling while standing in that position.

“You call her Leia,” Solo interrupted, “almost no one does.”

“We’ve known each other since we were children,” she shrugged, “Cassian’s known her for a long time, too, though, but-“

“Captain Rules and Regulations would never-“

She snorted, “yes.”

“They’re cut of the same cloth, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” she replied, knowing that it was time to prove a point to this man, “but she supported us on a rogue mission and he was recruiting a special ops team behind my back while I tried to convince the Council to infiltrate an Imperial archive. With the right incentive, they might break a few rules, you know.”

“Oh, yeah?” the smuggler replied, leaning back on the crate he was sitting against.

“Watch me.”

She marched over to Cassian as if to talk to a superior.

“Captain,” she said as neutrally as possible, “can I talk to you for a minute?”

Both rebels turned to look at her, their expressions equally and identically blank. Leia just nodded at Cassian and made her excuses, sauntering off further along the hangar, yelling for the astromech that had carried the Death Star plans to follow her.

“What is it?” he seemed worried.

“Nothing, really,” she inched slowly in his direction, curling a finger in the lapel of his jacket.

“You interrupted us for nothing?” he blinked slowly, his eyes angry but also following her hand on his chest.

She smiled a little triumphantly.

“Not nothing, no. Just giving you a tiny little break from this chaos,” she said, her voice suddenly small.

His eyes darted in Solo’s direction and he made a disapproving noise. She laughed and raised herself on the tips of her boots to give him a chaste kiss. But she slipped her hand over the back of his neck and tangled her fingers in the hair there. He gave away so easily, letting the datapad fall in between them and catching it with his knee against her leg so he could put at least one of his hands on her. They pulled away when they heard the first catcall from the parked X-Wing’s general direction. He looked a bit dazed, with his cheeks flushed.

“Please take it easy, darling. Go rest a bit in a while, will you?” she asked, looking sternly into his tired eyes.

He sighed, winced a bit when stooping to pick up the datapad from between them, “yes.”

She smiled, sent Cassian on his way, and turned back to the smuggler.

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Erso?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

“I am not suggesting anything,” she said breezily, “we have crates to load.”

“I had no idea you two were together,” Solo scoffed, “thank you for that unnecessary demonstration.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” she mumbled almost without thinking and when he groaned, she just threw a roll of duratape at him.


End file.
